28 Muna’s Story

Meet Muna, shown in figure 28.1. Muna graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science with Industrial Experience in 2025. During her study, she did an internship at Couchbase.com in Manchester. She also organised and partipated in numerous hackathons.

Figure 28.1: Muna Hassan. Picture re-used from LinkedIn with permission, thanks Muna. 🙏

Listen to the episode by clicking Play ▶️ below, or subscribing wherever you get your podcasts, see section 27.2. An annotated and edited transcript of the audio is shown below.

28.1 What’s Your Story Muna?

During the podcast we talked about starting Computing at Whalley Range High School in Manchester where Mr Mustafa sparked her interest in Computing with Scratch. We also talked about A-levels at Loreto College, Manchester and switching from studying Denistry to studying Computer Science.

During her study, Muna took part numerous hackathons including one create a fusion reactor in Minecraft, in collaboration with the Manchester Fusion Society (MancheSTAR).

We also discussed being a member of several minority and under-represented groups. There’s a raw, unedited, machine generated transcript of the podcast here.

28.2 One tune

For her tune, Muna chose Don’t Look Back in Anger (Gallagher 1996) for her inner Mancunian and the songs message about regret, see figure 28.2

Figure 28.2: Don’t Look Back in Anger is a song from the second Oasis album (Gallagher 1996) According to Noel Gallagher “It’s about not being upset by about the things you might have said or done yesterday. It’s about looking forward rather than looking back. I hate people who look back on the past or talk about what might have been”.

28.3 One book

For her book, Muna chose The Forty Rules of Love (Shafak 2009) by Elif Shafak, see figure 28.3

Figure 28.3: The Forty Rules of Love is a novel by Elif Shafak which describes the transformation of a scholar into a sufi (mystic) through love. (Shafak 2009)

28.4 One podcast

For her podcast, Muna chose Rotten Mango, see figure 28.4

Figure 28.4: True crime a genre of non fiction dealing with violent crimes such as murders and serial killers, including high-profile cases. The rottenmangopodcast.com is a popular true crime podcast. (Soo 2025) Public domain image a 1961 cover of True Detective magazine from Wikimedia Commons w.wiki/Ebrs adapted using the Wikipedia app. ☠️ 🪓

28.5 One film

For her film Muna chose Legally Blonde, see figure 28.5

Figure 28.5: Legally Blonde tells the story of Elle Woods (played by Reese Witherspoon), a sorority girl who attempts to win back her ex-boyfriend Warner Huntington III (played by Matthew Davis) by getting a Juris Doctor (JD) degree at Harvard Law School (Luketic 2001) Decapitation of Reese Witherspoon by the autocrop feature of the Wikipedia App. ✂️

28.6 Studio Selfie

Muna took this studio selfie, see figure 28.6

Figure 28.6: Thanks for the studio selfie by Muna 🤳